The Chaser Report - The Ransom of the Opera

Episode Date: September 14, 2022

Charles Firth and Andrew Hansen venture past the point of no return and find out where all Melbourne's opera has gone. Please excuse our lack of opera knowledge, that's all I ask of you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report for Thursday the 15th of September. I'm Charles Firth and with me today is Andrew Hanson. What a pleasure to be here with you, Charles First, today. Yes, it's very pleasurable. If I have to leave the podcast at any point to go to the toilet. I used to suffering from your...

from your L.A. gastro, I'm up to, you know, visit number nine. Oh, my goodness. That's a lot. That's a lot of visits. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Especially when you're in L.A., you know, it's supposed to be the glamour of Hollywood. Well, I've been here for two weeks, and I've only just discovered, like, a few minutes ago, that I'm not supposed to be drinking the tap water. Apparently, it's undrinkable in L.A. Well, that could be behind some of the bowel movements you've been experiencing.

I don't know how I missed that warning. It's pretty major, isn't it? No wonder I feel so shit. But isn't that sad that you got to, I mean, it really is like a third world country. You can't even drink the water. I thought it was all bottled water in L.A. anyway, hasn't it been since 1981? Nobody's drunk tap water in L.A. for 40 years. But this is the thing.

People kept on saying, oh, you should drink the filtered water, you know. Oh, here, have a fancy bottle. And I just thought everyone was being posh. But actually, no, they're just being hygienic. They just don't want to hysteria. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, but my one hope is that actually it will be a rapid weight loss scheme. And I'll actually return to Australia very life.

I was going to say, you look fantastic over the Zoom. You look absolutely terrific to me. You've lost, you've shed the pounds, Charles. I'd be drinking that. I'd be selling that tap water. I'll be bringing it back to Australia in bottles and selling it as a health product. Yeah, the latest health fad from L.A. Yeah.

We call it 10 times a day. Yeah, that's right. Get moving with 10 times a day from L.A. Okay, anyway, on the show today, we're going to be talking all things opera. I know our listeners are huge opera fans. Well, like all Australians. You know, that's our main form of entertainment in this country. What's going on in the world of opera?

Very dramatic stuff. It's almost like an opera in and of itself, Charles, with high stakes and people singing in pompous weird voices. Look, we all love an opera, don't we? Everybody, every true blue salt of the earth, Ozzie loves an opera. Yes. Well, you know, yeah, meat pie in one hand, a glass of shendon in the other.

You go to the, that's right, you go to the opera. Lucia de Lama Moore. Exactly That's what we all get Lecia Lecia Lecia Lecia!

Ooy! Oye! Oye! O'i! Yeah, yeah. Understand? Take those big hands with you to wave And of course the beer snake

The beer snake that goes around The Opera Auditorium Mind you, last time I was at the Opera House and they started a Mexican wave That did not go very well Because everyone's like 90 years old and it was very, very slow.

Watching these cripples try and get up in time. Well, but you need that, because, you know, if you've got to sit through Wagner for seven hours, you need a whole bunch of 90-year-olds trying to do a Mexican way to take you through to the end. Well, anyway, look, I better get on to the dramas, right? Now, this is an organisation called Opera Australia. They're the main sort of people who make operas in Australia.

They're the cricket Australia. of opera. They're the cricketers, exactly, exactly, yes, just to put it into scandals. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get, you know,

our money. Do you think that they, do you think that opera singers try and cheat, like cricketers cheat? Well, the famous, you know, sandpaper incident

of the ring cycle, wasn't there? Yeah, that's right, exactly. That was very worrying. And, oh, that was, that was outrageous, I'd never thought that Sopranos could be so unethical.

It's just a disgrace. She walks on sandpapers off Figaro's shoes and whatever she did. Clearly trying to hide it. Yes, it was the deceptiveness. I know it was within the rules, but still, still, you know. Well, look, anyway, now, Opera Australia takes our money, right? They take our taxes, so, you know, as every trade he wants. You know, he hopes that part of his paycheck will go to fund, you know, a new Barber of Seville production.

Yeah, yeah. Or Churindott? Yeah, or, well, like, Turendot is the, well, that's the favourite of carpenters. Yeah. Anyway, they've announced their slate for next year and it's caused a bit of a ruckus, Charles. I just wanted to run you through it, because I don't know if you're across the opera news. Oh, yeah, no, huge. Well, I just read the Daily Telegraphs, so of course I'm across it.

Oh, well, yeah, yeah, it's the liftout. It's got the opera liftout, just next to the sport. Well, their slate for next year includes no fewer than five operas that are going to be staged in Sydney, right? Lovely. But of course, Opera Australia, they're supposed to produce operas all around Australia, right? My question to you is, Charles, how many operas do you think they're making in Melbourne this year? Well, see, Sydney's got the Sydney Opera House.

So I kind of feel like that's probably going to be prioritised. So, well, probably, if you're going to break it down, Sydney gets five, I'd say probably three for Melbourne, and then one for, like, Hobart or something, yeah. Well, that's not a bad guess, because actually, according to the news, like 25 years ago, in a typical year, Opera Australia would make six or seven operas in Melbourne. Right, yeah, but times are tough. Well, this year, yeah, this year they've slightly reduced that number to zero. Right.

So there was a got five operas for Sydney and no opera. So what happens if you're an out-of-work opera singer in Melbourne? What do you do this year? Well, I suppose you'd get a real job, wouldn't you? You'd have to do something else. But you've been training for 20 years. Like, opera singer's trained. We had a friend who was an opera singer, didn't me?

Yeah, I know. She'd been a, like, she'd trained for years in Sydney. They do. Australia and then she went to London and she did about five or six years of training I was lucky she doesn't live in Melbourne isn't it? She's not going to be able to put

that to use The Chaser Report Now with extra whispers So what do they do? What do you do? Well They're just going to have to make You know they're going to have to become Footballers instead or something

You know something that actually happens in Melbourne You know I guess Or maybe try their hand at stand up A bit of stand-up comedy, perhaps. Well, maybe they could do the half-time entertainment. Well, they could dress up at a mascot.

I mean, I'd like to see more, you know, more of our sort of leading ladies from operas, you know. Either cheerleading, yeah, doing sexy cheerleader routines or just dressing up as a bear or a dog in a fluffy suit. You know what they could do? Because opera singers are notoriously bad at acting. I don't know whether you've seen many operas, Andrew. Yeah, no.

Thankfully not. I haven't. So they would be perfect. to star in Home and Away. I thought they've finished, or was that Neighbors? It was Neighbors. No, no. Home and Away is still going.

What about the Masked singer? I mean, there is reality TV. That still exists, isn't it? Yeah, that's all right. And people would go, oh, my goodness, it's my favourite opera singer, the celebrity. Jaws dropping on it. All the kids posting on TikTok.

Oh, M.G. I'm trying to think of an opera singer, but I don't know it. I don't know. I know one. Ali McGregor, the lovely Ellie McGregor, a mate of mine, Ali McGregor.

Oh, right. She could be doing a bit of this. Yeah. Yeah, all right. Well, look, there is a reason behind this, though, Charles. The reason behind Melbourne, poor old Melbourne being slighted by opera Australia. Because I should mention that Brisbane's getting two operas. Oh, really? Yeah, five for Sydney.

Two for Brissy. But the main reason, what do you think the main reason is that Melbourne has been you know shafted is it something to do with did they accidentally run over a whole lot of opera singers during the Grand Prix oh that's they're not a bad

is not a man they've run out of yeah I don't think that would happen because opera singers are you know they're quite well they're built they built a road they built a road through the opera house down there is that what's that oh yeah it's the opera it's the east west link

it's gone straight It'll be something like that, truly. Well, no, the reason actually is because the state theater in Melbourne is being renovated. And so it's simply not available. But according to this article, this is a little unfortunate. It closes at the beginning of 2024 to be refurbished for four or five years. What? So that's how long there won't be any operas in Melbourne.

It's only got one venue. I thought, hang on, couldn't they put it somewhere else? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they did discuss the idea of putting it in the region theater in Melbourne, which is where I live. Yeah, yeah. But it was pointed out that the region theatre is too little to put on an opera. It's not big enough, you know, the stage to fit all those big dresses and things.

Yeah, instruments. And the elephants and things. There's lots of people in the choir But couldn't they just have a slightly smaller opera? Apparently not that, no, that is not to be considered, Charles, no. The opera cannot be made smaller. They would save money as well if they didn't have as many performers. Well, they're not interested in.

It's government funding. They don't need to save money. Yeah, right, okay. So they're just not going to have any opera for four or five years? Well, I'd say, I'd imagine not. I mean, not unless they can, you know, suddenly build an opportunity. This is shocking. How is this not front-page news every day?

It's outrageous. I know this must be front of mind for many, many seething people. This is my prediction. This is going to become the election issue that's been the election. I think it is. It's up there with the vaccine rollout. It really is. I mean, lives are at stake.

Ah, yes, dictator Dan. Ruins opera. First, he locks it down. I also don't quite understand. If they're closing it in 2024, why can't they do an opera next year? Because next year's not 2024, next year's 2023. Yeah, there is a reason for that, but it's so boring and complicated

that it's buried in the article. I don't think I should bother mentioning it in the podcast. I think it's something like there's already... There's already shows in there. They've already got shows in there. But the other funny thing about the opera community is fuming. They're fuming because all they've got, Charles, you know, Opera Australia, not making any operas. All they've got, the poor old opera lovers in Melbourne are the many, many operas that are being made either by Victorian opera or Melbourne opera or two other opera companies that also operate in Melbourne.

I didn't realise there was. So there's competing opera leagues. Yes, there are opera. it is. There's about four different organisations who make operas in Melbourne. You just wouldn't think there'd be that much demand.

Well, you know, part one of its government, you know, part of it's because taxpayers fund Victorian opera according to my research in this article. And then there's Melbourne opera and it seems to me that the reason they can do it in this article is that

almost nobody gets paid. Oh, right. So it's one or the other. It's one or the other. either the hardworking Aussies pay for it to happen or you do it for free This is entertainment in Australia, isn't it? Yeah, yeah, you and I live by these rules as well

Yeah, yeah, you don't get paid for work Yeah But mind you, presumably the people at Opera Australia Who work in Melbourne Will just not have to work And get paid for five years Like, is that how it works? Well, I guess it is, yes, that'd be a great job, isn't it?

God, I should say I should bloody apply I'm going to apply, yeah, for the head of Opera Australia, Melbourne operations. Nothing on in the next five years or a $280,000 a year to run. Absolutely nothing. Just sit in an empty theatre watching it. Mind you. Actually, that would be better than most operas. Yeah.

Our gear is from Road and we're part of the ACASC created network. Andrew Hansen, lovely to chat. See you tomorrow. you tomorrow. There's a bit of opera for you. Free of charge.